A Different Kind of Delivery
by cranberrie-cat
Summary: She was untouched by rules and laws; there was nothing that wasn’t possible for her. She was your will. The wind. The gravel under your feet. She came from other lands, other worlds, where the world was so much more. And she came to me.


**A Different Kind of Delivery**

--

I had never met anyone like her before. She was like a fire, a burning flame which never seemed to end. You would think she would make the rest of the world look colourless and boring, but it was on the contrary. Everything just seemed so full of life and colour in her presence. Every flower she touched burst into bloom, the sun shone more brightly, the rain felt softer and wetter and more releasing than before, people smiled when she walked past and I seriously think the sky looked bigger with her beneath it. She was untouched by rules and laws, everything was possible for her. She was the dreams about something else, about another life, about another path, another city, another home. She was your will. The wind. The gravel under your feet. Your lost childhood summers. Nothing could take her down.

She came from other lands, other worlds, where the world was so much _more_. And she came to me. She came, took my hand and pulled me up. Her fire touched my heart in a way it had never been touched before. It all just seemed to melt away, the ice, the monotony, the emptiness. Gone! And she took its place. My whole heart was filled of her. Her fiery hair, her soft hands, her milky white shoulders, her smile, her love, her presence, her soul. It all crawled inside me that night, but she never truly left it there either. It still belonged to her. No one could ever own her. I still wonder why she chose me of all people. Everyone was amazed by her. I was just the Boy Who Lived, a simple and sad hero who saw nothing in life. And she saw everything.

Don't worry, I will tell you of how she came to me and filled my world; but it's all I'm going to tell you, it's all that matters. What happens afterwards is not important. Her arrival is the thing I remember clearest, what I think about during the nights. I may be a hero, but then she is the heroine of the hero.

It was a night just like all other nights. I was sitting in a bar somewhere in London. I don't remember the name of it even. It began as all other nights; I drank and thought I was happy. The firewhiskey could take away all the nightmares, all the dark thoughts, all the memories. I didn't need to bother about living when I had firewhiskey. In the beginning, I always used to praise firewhiskey. It helped me forget, I drank it like a delivery. Tonight, she would show me a different kind of delivery. But let's not rush things. She has still not arrived; the world is still in black and white.

These nights at the bars were like a hill. I climbed higher and higher up, the alcohol in my veins turning the world into something slightly enticing. I laughed, drank, danced, talked and flirted. Usually I had no confidence around girls, but the firewhiskey made me the bravest man alive. So I climbed the hill, felt how I reached higher and higher. The higher I came, the more I felt. Or rather, the more I fled from the things I didn't want to feel. I felt happiness and hope and love and all that, but I completely forgot everything that was me. Forgot my parents, forgot my godfather, and forgot Dumbledore. I turned my back to their memories, to them, because it made my life easier for a second. So finally, I stood on top of this hill feeling greater and better than ever before. Everything would work out. The war had never occurred, I had never been an orphan; I had never been taken away into the forests of some unknown country by my godfather at the age of eleven to be trained to kill. I stood on the top, and looked down at everything else. Then, when I finally thought I had found it, my life, a wind came and pushed me down the hill. It didn't take more than two seconds, before I was back with all my memories. I couldn't escape them. They were a part of me. I wished they weren't a part of me.

I turned away from my friends, who were still laughing and dancing, and walked over to the bar. In my mind, I was going to do as I always did. Drown in my memories with something even stronger than the firewhiskey in my hand. I wouldn't climb the hill anymore, but now the alcohol would dull my feelings instead. The fact that I would fall asleep on a bar, which would cause another scandal headline in _the Daily Prophet,_ only crossed my mind for a second. I didn't care. I just wanted to drink so much until I fell asleep so I wouldn't have to feel like this longer than necessary.

I was a lost child, trying to breathe. I didn't know where in the world I would go. Where I _could_ go, where I could find some peace. I believed such a place didn't exist because I hadn't found peace yet. I only knew the alcohol, the intoxication. It was destructive, it was hopeless. I promised myself every time this was the last go, but didn't I find myself in the same situation only a day later?

And as I sat there, firewhiskey in my hand and blackness in my mind, she came. The angel, the saviour, the heroine. I don't know from where she came, I don't know why she came. But as I sat there, I felt someone grab my hand and a soft voice spoke in my ear: "I think you need some fresh air and something to live for." Suddenly she had dragged me out of the bar and onto the street. I followed her without thinking. I had no control over anything anymore.

She took me to a nearby park, and we sat down under a tree. She asked me why I did this to myself. I didn't understand what she meant. Why? There was no reason behind it. The reason of my life had been to kill Voldemort. I had done it. Now there wasn't any reason left.

She stared at me. It was the first time I discovered her honey brown eyes. They shone with a light of a thousand fires, burning into me. Her eyes were alive. It was the first time in my life that someone looked at me with eyes that sparkled with life.

"No reason?" she said. "There is a reason within everything."

I didn't answer, and she continued.

"There is a reason in the little girl and her mother over there. There is a reason for your life in all the lives of the fishes in the pond. There is a reason in the stars. There is a reason in the grass. There is a reason in your friends. There is a reason for your life in the air. There is a reason for your life in me."

She fell quiet.

"I don't understand what you mean," I said.

She took my hand again. This time I noticed how her warmth spread into me, how her fire was infectious.

"Then I will show you," she said. I followed again. As we walked, I wondered where this unusual girl came from. How could she know I needed a reason? How could she just take my hand and drag me out of my mess?

She took me to the top of a hill in the same park. Below us was a pond. It was dark. I still didn't understand what she wanted from me.

"We have to wait for the beauty to appear," she said. She sat down, and so did I. "While we wait, you can tell me about your life."

Why I told her, I have no idea, but I told her everything. About how nothing was the same, how nobody wanted to know me, of how alone I was in this world. How I came nowhere.

"Either you have to find something to blame everything on, or you have to force yourself through. There doesn't seem to be any other way," I said.

But she shook her head. "No. We can build our own world in the park here and care about each other. No rules. No stress. Just you and me," she whispered. It made me smile. What she said was a dream, a beautiful dream, but a dream all the same, a utopia in its most perfect form. It would never become true. Surely, she couldn't mean that such a thing as true love existed?

She laughed at me, as if she knew what I was thinking.

"Of course love exists."

"No. Not to me. Love has never been there for me," I said.

She smiled again. Her smiles were like waterfalls, sunshine, honey and everything at the same time. They made a feeling explode inside of me, a feeling I haven't ever felt before. A feeling of being invincible, of standing on top of a skyscraper and jumping and knowing you wouldn't hurt yourself when you hit the ground.

"Would you like to find it then? Find love? I could help you," she said.

"How?" I asked.

Her waterfall smile again.

Then she whispered: "I think you know."

She was right. I knew. I should have been scared to do it, but I wasn't. I think it was her sunshine smiles that did it; they made me feel so light. I thought nothing could go wrong. So I leaned forward, and for the first time in my life I kissed someone.

I make it sound as if I've never kissed another person before, but I have. I just never shared a real _kiss_ with another person. In that sense, this was my first, because I could really _feel_ her. Not only her lips, I could feel her fire, could feel her sun, could feel her laughs, could feel the whole of her.

It was all it took for me to fall in love with her.

"See?" she said when we broke apart. "I said it wasn't hard."

I smiled. I think my smiles contained some of her waterfalls now.

Then she pointed at the lake.

"The beauty has appeared now."

Now I understood what she wanted me to see. The moon had arisen, and even though its light wasn't very bright, it reflected in the lake. However, its reflection was not only in the lake. We sat at such an angle that the moonlight also reflected in the wet stones by the sides and came out in different colours. It _was_ beautiful. It was like the whole landscape glittered in front of us. It made me smile even more. She was right, just like before. This was a real delivery; firewhiskey was only a temporary excuse.

I felt her warm lips on the side of my chin. They were so soft. I closed my eyes, letting the whole of my being feel her.

Who was this girl? I had fallen in love with her, but I didn't even know her name. But then I decided it didn't matter. What her name was didn't change anything, where she came from didn't change anything. She would still be my first love.

I got a sudden impulse, and stood up. For the first time this night, she looked at me with surprise.

"You have shown me so many beautiful things tonight. Now it's my turn." And I took her hand and led her away from the park.

I felt delighted and playful like a little child. I had longed for being a child, because I had never really been one. She gave me back the childhood I had never had.

"Where are we going?"she asked, while she laughed merrily at my behaviour.

"You'll see, you'll see," I replied. We walked down the night streets of London. The streetlight was shining on us, just for us. Just for her. Or the light was shining from her onto the light bulbs. I couldn't really tell, looking at her was like looking straight into the sun.

We reached an old factory building which had been standing there for years, unkempt. But if you went around the house into the backyard and climbed up on the dustbins you were high enough to reach the roof.

I showed her around and lifted her up onto the dustbin after me, and then up onto the roof. When we were both up, I took her hand and led her to the other side.

"Look," I said. "This was the only thing I found beautiful until this evening."

She nodded. "It is beautiful. You feel like flying, when you're above everything else like this."

The building wasn't too high, so of course there were people who were higher up than us, but still. You saw all the light from the night underneath you, and you felt so far, far away from the rest of the world. Above them.

We sat down by the edge of the flat roof, our feet dangling in the air. Our bodies seconds from falling and losing themselves in the mix of city lights, stars and night air. The touch of the wings from her laugher on my lips was ecstatic, thunder and soft silk sheets at the same time. Sitting beside her, kissing her, feeling and listening to her, I saw a future ahead. A future with tea mugs on a couch, touches between fingers, a fire for me and as much intoxication I could dream of. I had never dreamed of this before because I only let myself dream about possible things.

And now it was possible.

As the night turned closer towards the morning, I only loved this girl deeper and deeper. I realised she had changed my life in just one night, by doing such a small thing as showing me beautiful things, making me feel beauty. But for me it wasn't a small thing, it was as if she had given back a precious and important memory to me that I had forgotten.

"I want to marry you," I said suddenly when the first rays of the sun touched the sky's silk blanket.

The touch of the wings from her laugher was soft on my lips. I smiled.

"I think I may want to marry you too," she said.

"Come on then," I said, eager like a child. "Let's get married now!"

The waterfall again. It rinsed my heart. "Now? But I don't have a dress, and we don't have a priest or anything…"

"Who said we need a priest? I've never believed in God anyway. I only care about us. If you say you marry me and I say I marry you, then we are married!"

"Okay then." She smiled.

I pulled her up, and took both her hands in mine.

"Do you marry me?"

"I do." Her silk voice was the reason for my whole future life.

"Do you marry me?" she continued.

"I do."

And then we kissed, like millions of newlyweds before us. We were just like them, in love and completely crazy. Although I don't think it's normal to spend your wedding night on a roof in the middle of London.

I knew that in the moment I said I would marry her that our relationship could end tomorrow or last forever. Actually, it didn't matter so very much what happened, because I would always have this. This night. I would forever keep her in my memory. It would always be there to keep my company in the lonely night, in the monotone days.

Because it was the most beautiful moment in my life.

When you came.


End file.
